Adventures in Armed Robbery
by dragonflybeach
Summary: Things are Really Bad Ideas: 1) Trying to rob those two guys in the old black car. Outsider POV. Unspecified time frame.


Something was wrong.

He knew as soon as he opened his eyes.

He couldn't see anything other than a vague shadow here and there, with it being dark and the blinds closed. He didn't hear anything unusual, or at least he didn't think he did.

A smell.

He could smell leather, whiskey, and ... books, maybe?

"Is someone there?" he whispered as loudly as he dared.

"Yes." a deep voice answered.

Before he could even draw a breath, the lamp by his bed flicked on.

Two men, two huge men, stood on either side of his bed with huge guns pointed at his head.

"Oh shit!" he gasped as he scrambled back toward the headboard, pulling up the thin blanket to cover his undershirt and briefs.

It was the two guys who had checked in a few hours earlier, the ones in the big black car.

Oh, this was bad.

"Hi Tate." The one with the shorter hair grinned a snake's smile. "It is Tate, right? That's what your buddy told us."

"What do you want?" he asked nervously, looking from one man to the other, both of whom still had guns trained on him.

The bigger man with the long hair didn't smile at all. He barely seemed to breathe or blink. The shorter man still smiled. Tate wasn't sure which one was more frightening.

"We just came to have a little talk." the shorter one said. "You don't mind us coming in and waking you up, since the same thing just happened to us, right?"

"W ... what ha-ha-happened to Donnie?" Tate stammered.

"Oh, Donnie's fine." The man doing all the talking shrugged a little. "He's handcuffed to the pipe under the sink in our bathroom, but he's still alive. For now."

"Look, I ... "

"Save it." The taller man spoke for the first time.

"See Tate?" the other man continued. "We had along day. We'd been driving for 14 hours trying to get to a job. We see this motel, and it looks like a quiet place where we can get some rest, so we check in. We have a few beers and some pizza, watch a little tv, and hit the sack. Then in the middle of the night, someone opens the door with a key. But see, we had noticed earlier that the screws on the plate that hold the door chain in place were loose, so we fixed them. Your buddy, Donnie, right?" He waited until Tate nodded before going on. "Donnie wasn't expecting that. He thought he was going to slide into our room with a gun and catch us asleep and off guard. You know why he expected that? We had a little talk with him. Seems like you two have a plan going. When someone checks in who looks like they might have something worth stealing, but might have a vested interest in not calling the cops, you tip him off to come pay a visit during the night. You gave him a master key and everything."

"I ... we ... " Tate stammered, looking again from one to the other.

The taller man quickly pulled and released the slide on his gun, the aim never wavering.

Tate made a noise and raised both hands to his head.

"Now Tate, you're not going to do that any more. Do you know why?" the man continued conversationally.

Tate shook his head furiously.

"I can't hear you, Tate."

"N ... no ... no, sir."

The man looked over at the taller man. "He called me sir, Sammy. Isn't that polite? You almost wouldn't know he was a two bit criminal."

Tate sneaked a glance at the taller man, whose expression did not change, and who still held a loaded gun inches from Tate's head.

"I'll tell you why you're not going to do this any more, Tate." the man held up the hand that wasn't holding a gun, revealing a small black object in his palm. "Because we just recorded this whole conversation. And the one with Donnie too, by the way. Donnie talks a lot when he's nervous. He told us about several thefts and burglaries in this area. I'm figuring that even without whatever robberies you two may have committed here at the motel, you're looking at a minimum of ten years. I wouldn't worry, though. Good looking, small framed guy like you in state prison? You'll have a boyfriend in no time."

The man clicked off the recorder and then took two steps across the room to put it on top of the tv. He came back, took handcuffs from his jacket pocket, and handcuffed Tate to the bed.

The tall man lowered the gun and flicked the safety on.

"We're just going to leave you here, and call the cops from your phone on our way out." The shorter man said, picking up Tate's wallet from the nightstand. "Now, you owe us $35 for the room we didn't get to spend the night in, $15 for the recorder, and $10 for laundry, because your friend pissed himself when we took him down. That's a total of $60. You've got $100 in here, so we're going to take $80, and call the other $20 our fee for not killing you. But I'm going to be nice and leave you $20 so you can buy condoms and vaseline at the prison canteen."

He picked up the phone by the bed and dialed 911.

"I'd like to report an attempted armed robbery at the Bluebird Motor Lodge. Both suspects have been subdued and restrained. One is in the manager's room, and the other is in room 109."

He clicked the phone off and dropped it onto Tate's chest.

The taller man rounded the end of the bed, and the two of them headed for the door.

"Wait!" Tate shouted. "You can't just leave me here!"

The taller man turned, took his gun back out of his pocket, and flipped the safety off.

"No! No! It's okay! Leave me here!" Tate screeched.

The taller man looked at the shorter one, who shrugged.

"Can't make up his mind, huh?" the shorter one said.

The taller one put the gun back on safety, and followed the other man out the door.

As soon as the door closed, Tate heard laughter.

"You were trying to make him shit himself, Sam!"

"Well at least it would have been on the bed and not on us this time."

Tate sat and waited as the rumble of the old black Chevy's engine faded away, and the sound of sirens came closer.


End file.
